Bill Boyarsky, TruthDig, January 4, 2008
MANCHESTER, N.H.- I beat it out of Iowa just ahead of the more than 2,500 journalists arriving for Thursday’s caucuses.
“You’re going the wrong way,” said an Iowa-bound media friend I ran into at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
He had a point. Why was I leaving the racetrack before the horses crossed the finish line? Why not stick around to report the results?
To boil it down to its simplest terms, flight from Iowa was a rebellion against the unchanging, old-fashioned way politics are covered. As a colleague once told me, “If there are a hundred people covering a story, I don’t want to cover it.”
Like much of the career advice I’ve been given, this tip has its limitations. Reporters following it would miss untold numbers of wars, World Series and assassinations, but the man had a point. The greatest challenge for a reporter, and the most interesting experience, is to find a good story alone, away from the pack.
Read More Here
Off the Beaten Campaign Trail in New Hampshire
Bill Boyarsky, TruthDig, January 4, 2008
MANCHESTER, N.H.- I beat it out of Iowa just ahead of the more than 2,500 journalists arriving for Thursday’s caucuses.
“You’re going the wrong way,” said an Iowa-bound media friend I ran into at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
He had a point. Why was I leaving the racetrack before the horses crossed the finish line? Why not stick around to report the results?
To boil it down to its simplest terms, flight from Iowa was a rebellion against the unchanging, old-fashioned way politics are covered. As a colleague once told me, “If there are a hundred people covering a story, I don’t want to cover it.”
Like much of the career advice I’ve been given, this tip has its limitations. Reporters following it would miss untold numbers of wars, World Series and assassinations, but the man had a point. The greatest challenge for a reporter, and the most interesting experience, is to find a good story alone, away from the pack.
Read More Here